I have been racing for about 40 years but I honestly can't recall worse conditions for a road race than encountered on Sunday in the Gloucester '20'. Because of ongoing and well charted health problems, it was a last minute decision to run mainly based on the need to banish Andy Bradley's club V50 record into oblivion because of the stick he'd been giving me in the last two years. I also figured that if I felt bad I could treat the 20 as a training run. So after a lousy night's sleep (again!), I opened the curtains to a clear blue sky and what appeared to be a calm after the storm - the wind had been howling in the night. The atmosphere at the start in Frampton-on-Severn was very jovial. I was surprised that the 600 race limit had been reached; I suppose that's the effect of the London Marathon, only a few weeks to go so better do a few miles in preparation.
Decided to let Chris go for the glory and he duly obliged by going straight into the lead which he never relinquished. I settled into the second pack of four runners and we ran the first 6 miles together - at times it was hard to stop Dennis Walmsley talking, mainly about his previous best marathons but also asking about various aspects of Ciren AC: how my running was going so well, what time Chris aiming for at London (he scoffed when I told him, mainly as it's a time faster than he's done!) and whether Wendy was back running. Eventually the pack broke up with, surprisingly, Dennis the first to go out the back door.
Then it hit us! Turning the corner just after 7 miles the wind almost knocked us backwards. For the next mile or so it was head down, single file, into the wind and up some tough hills (note to all: never ask aforementioned Mr Bradley [seen here in Hungary, on right with Wendy, Paul Barlow & me]
about contours of a course, he told me there were no hills of note. He was wrong!). The weather then got really nasty as freezing rain and spiky, painful hail started hitting us and the temperature plummeted. At times maintaining forward motion was almost impossible. I was wearing gloves but my fingers were numb. This lasted for 3-4 miles until the course turned direction at the start of the second of two laps (plus pan handle of 3 miles out / back). I was alone by this point and was able to stretch out again. It was a strange feeling though, or perhaps no feeling, because although my cadence picked up I couldn't feel my legs as they were numb from cold and the battering they'd received from the rain & hail.
Sure enough the wind hit again at 14 miles and lasted all the way through to the finish, although thankfully the rain had eased somewhat. I chased down a mad, long haired Russian from Headington (!), Vasily Zverev, for a few miles, catching him at 16, and also started lapping some of the poor souls who had another hour or two of purgatory to go through, before turning off for the 3 mile "run-in" to the finish. I use quote marks because by this stage and in those conditions the verb "to run" is probably not what best describes my attempts at forward motion. The combination of conditions, my health and the race distance all took their toll and I was struggling. Twice I slowed to a virtual jog as I was battered by the elements and both times I screamed out loud to myself to get moving again. The whole thing was quite surreal. I crawled across the finish line, bereft of emotion, looked at my watch and swore out loud. I knew times were irrelevant given the conditions but thought I could hold on to ensure that I would get the fastest V50 time in the country so far this year, namely 2:02:31. My splits were 29:22, 59:30 & 1.30.28. But no, all that effort and I missed top spot by 5 stupid seconds! My only pleasure came from replying to Mr Bradley's text asking about his record, which I broke by 24 minutes (conditions must have been tough that year Andy!). Now for his marathon record, but where ... ?
The final nightmare of the morning came after finishing. Rigamortis, hypothermia and frostbite were all kicking in yet I had to walk back across the canal bridge to the race HQ; I started walking along the towpath but in the wrong direction! It was only after a few minutes when I couldn't see a bridge in sight that I looked around and saw an official frantically waving his arms that I realised my mistake. There were, I'm sure, two more finishers up ahead of me, I just hope they are still not walking along the Gloucester & Sharpness Canal!
After a particularly difficult spell through the centre of Reading - I found the twists & turns ruined my normally metronomic stride - I then locked into a great pace from about eight miles and managed a couple of sub 5.40 miles (57.50 at 10 miles). Bizarrely, in a field on 12,000 runners I was running totally alone for a few miles and couldn't even see the guys ahead. Finished strongly in the magnificent stadium and without any undue stress. Relatively pleased with my time; it's interesting that a year ago I would have been ecstatic with 76.02 such has been my progress. Had to wait until the next day to get the news that I'd won the V50 race by some five minutes.
